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  <div class="section" id="cmp0008">
<span id="policy:CMP0008"></span><h1>CMP0008<a class="headerlink" href="#cmp0008" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
<p>Libraries linked by full-path must have a valid library file name.</p>
<p>In CMake 2.4 and below it is possible to write code like</p>
<div class="highlight-none notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>target_link_libraries(myexe /full/path/to/somelib)
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>where <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">somelib</span></code> is supposed to be a valid library file name such as
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">libsomelib.a</span></code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">somelib.lib</span></code>.  For Makefile generators this
produces an error at build time because the dependency on the full
path cannot be found.  For <a class="reference internal" href="../manual/cmake-generators.7.html#visual-studio-generators"><span class="std std-ref">Visual Studio Generators</span></a> IDE
and <span class="target" id="index-0-generator:Xcode"></span><a class="reference internal" href="../generator/Xcode.html#generator:Xcode" title="Xcode"><code class="xref cmake cmake-generator docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Xcode</span></code></a> generators this used to
work by accident because CMake would always split off the library
directory and ask the linker to search for the library by name
(<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">-lsomelib</span></code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">somelib.lib</span></code>).  Despite the failure with Makefiles, some
projects have code like this and build only with Visual Studio and/or Xcode.
This version of CMake prefers to pass the full path directly to the
native build tool, which will fail in this case because it does not
name a valid library file.</p>
<p>This policy determines what to do with full paths that do not appear
to name a valid library file.  The <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">OLD</span></code> behavior for this policy is to
split the library name from the path and ask the linker to search for
it.  The <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">NEW</span></code> behavior for this policy is to trust the given path and
pass it directly to the native build tool unchanged.</p>
<p>This policy was introduced in CMake version 2.6.1.  CMake version
3.16.5 warns when the policy is not set and uses <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">OLD</span></code> behavior.  Use
the <span class="target" id="index-0-command:cmake_policy"></span><a class="reference internal" href="../command/cmake_policy.html#command:cmake_policy" title="cmake_policy"><code class="xref cmake cmake-command docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">cmake_policy()</span></code></a> command to set it to <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">OLD</span></code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">NEW</span></code> explicitly.</p>
<div class="admonition note">
<p class="admonition-title">Note</p>
<p>The <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">OLD</span></code> behavior of a policy is
<span class="target" id="index-0-manual:cmake-policies(7)"></span><a class="reference internal" href="../manual/cmake-policies.7.html#manual:cmake-policies(7)" title="cmake-policies(7)"><code class="xref cmake cmake-manual docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">deprecated</span> <span class="pre">by</span> <span class="pre">definition</span></code></a>
and may be removed in a future version of CMake.</p>
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